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The Sun: MANCHESTER UNITED, Arsenal and Chelsea have all been alerted that Marseille are ready to sell Franck Ribery. The World Cup winger is almost certain to quit France in the summer after reaching an agreement with his club.
United boss Alex Ferguson sees Ribery as a potential long-term replacement for Ryan Giggs while Chelsea believe he could take over from Arjen Robben. Arsenal chief Arsene Wenger has been chasing the 24-year-old for more than a year.
The scar-faced winger, who has just returned from a broken foot, said: “I have been given the agreement of Marseille to let me leave in the summer and I trust them to fulfil their commitment.
“To be honest it all depends on Champions League qualification.”
The Guardian: John Terry believes the momentum is with Chelsea ahead of a potential hat-trick of showdowns against Manchester United.Yet, at a time when Sir Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho might be shaping up for an exchange of mind games, the England captain is making no secret of his deep admiration for Cristiano Ronaldo.”For me he is the best in the world at the moment,” said Terry. “How do I stop him? I pass him on to Ashley Cole.”Ronaldo has been the subject of abuse from English supporters for his part in the World Cup exit against Portugal last summer but his contribution this season for United has brought out the football fan in Terry.”I totally admire the player after the stick he got,” he said.”He has done so well on and off the pitch and, honestly, I could watch Man United just to watch him. He does things with the ball you don’t see anyone else in the world doing. When he is at his best I don’t think there are many people who can stop him.”When he runs at you with his tricks and his skills you don’t know which way he is going. If you double up on him he passes to [Wayne] Rooney and he does it. Where do you stop? You can’t double up on everyone. It’s a case of us defending very well.”
Terry is even happy to concede that United are probably a more attractive team than Chelsea. He does not, however, agree that they are favourites to repeat their treble of 1999.”We are not banging them in as much as them and we might not be as good as them to watch at the moment but we are certainly getting the results and that’s the main thing,” he said.
“I don’t think anyone has any edge coming into this. If we play at our best and Man United don’t, we will win it. If we don’t and they do, then they will win.
“The good thing about this is that both sides have players that can win the game on their own. The Rooneys, the Ronaldos, the Lampards, the Drogbas, Arjen Robbens, Joe Coles. I would suspect it’s going to be pretty tight on both sides.’
If both teams progress through their Champions League semi-finals, Chelsea and United will face each other three times in a thrilling final fortnight of the season. United are currently weakened by injuries to several key defenders and the reversal in fortune has been noted by Terry.
“Every season has its swings and roundabouts,” he said. “We had our bit of misfortune earlier in the season when we had quite a few players out. Joe Cole is back fully fit and played fantastically well so, while they have got a couple of injuries, we are all fit bar one of us and Arjen Robben will be back hopefully in a week or 10 days.
“Rio [Ferdinand] has been playing brilliantly well alongside [Nemanja] Vidic and he is a big miss for them. Those two out of the team is the backbone and any team would miss them.
“The last couple of years we have run away with it and they have shown great desire to come back this year and really fight and push us. But we are pushing them right to the wire now. One result and it swings back in our favour.”
The Chelsea goalkeeper, Petr Cech, is predicting a battle of nerve. “We know if one side makes a mistake, the other one can take over. We know that and how important every game is.”
Chelsea’s FA Cup semi-final winner against Blackburn on Sunday was scored by Michael Ballack, who was part of the Germany team which beat Kevin Keegan’s England on the last major Wembley occasion and is now looking forward to the first Cup final at the new stadium. “For the history it’s good for me. I like to score important goals,” said Ballack.
The Sun: MANCHESTER UNITED and Chelsea are set to slug it out in yet another competition — the Professional Footballers’ Association Player of the Year award.Chelsea striker Didier Drogba has lead the way on the goals front this season with 30 to date, but faces a challenge for the prize from three Red Devils.Cristiano Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes have been instrumental to United’s Premiership title charge and are all on the shortlist.Arsenal midfielder Cesc Fabregas and Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard, the 2006 winner, complete the contenders for the prestigious award.Wayne Rooney is a notable absentee from the full award, but is still on the PFA Young Player award shortlist, having won it in 2005 and 2006.Reading striker Kevin Doyle, 23, Tottenham winger Aaron Lennon, 19, and 18-year-old Manchester City defender Micah Richards, who won his first England caps this season, are the other nominees.
Sheffield United boss Neil Warnock would buy Manchester United captain Gary Neville ahead of his star teammate Cristiano Ronaldo.Warnock, who has always made a point of stating Steven Gerrard is his all-time favourite, said: “He and Ronaldo are special players in many ways.”But from a personal point of view I would have Gary Neville every time.”He would be my player if I had to pick one, and that might sound stupid.”But I just feel we need someone like Gary Neville who has seen it all, done it all, can play, can influence, and has that aura about him.”We’re never going to get a Ronaldo or a Gerrard here, and while I appreciate what they do, from a Sheffield United point of view all we want to do is try and improve the squad.”
The Telegraph: Ben Foster will still get the chance to wear an FA Cup final suit after being invited by Sir Alex Ferguson to join the Manchester United party ahead of next month’s clash with Chelsea.It looked as if Foster’s chances of going to the new Wembley were ended when Watford, the club where he has spent the season on loan, fell at the semi-final hurdle against United, the club that owns him, on Saturday.The England international admitted his loyalties were torn as he watched from the stands at Villa Park before being told after United’s 4-1 victory he was going to the final anyway - albeit as a spectator.Foster has never kicked a football in United colours and has spent the last two seasons on loan at Watford, although he is due to return to Old Trafford in the summer.”It was not very nice to watch to be fair,” admitted Foster. “But I spoke to Tony Coton [the goalkeeping coach] after the game and he said I would be going with them to Wembley as part of the squad, even though I won’t be involved. He wants me to taste what it would be like to be involved in a Cup final, which will be good for me.
“He wants me to be suited and booted so I will get a Cup final suit. I will try to get involved in some of the pictures at the end. It will be good to be with the squad and with the players in the dressing room before the game.”Foster’s task next season is to compete with Edwin van der Sar for the No 1 jersey and he admits he is not returning to be a No 2 as it may affect his England career.
Foster, who made his international debut in February in a friendly against Spain, added: “If I don’t play it will be a case of grinding another season out, sitting on the bench and seeing what happens the season after.
“At the end of the day, I am going to be at United and it’s not a bad situation to be in. But I want to be out there playing to big crowds. I did not get into football to be a bench-warmer.”
The Guardian: Carlos Queiroz, the Manchester United assistant manager, has revised his terms of contract at Old Trafford to bring him in line with Sir Alex Ferguson on a year-long rolling deal.Queiroz originally signed a three-year contract when he rejoined the club in 2004, and there had been speculation in the Portuguese press that the former Real Madrid manager wanted to leave his options open this summer to see if there was a managerial position available elsewhere.However, United confirmed yesterday that Queiroz has negotiated new terms and now has the same agreement in place as Ferguson.
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A scan has revealed that Rio Ferdinand’s thigh injury is not serious and he should be available for Saturday’s game at home to Middlesbrough. Ferdinand is not expected to be risked against Sheffield United tonight but Gary Neville has an outside chance of making his return. John O’Shea is considered doubtful and, with Nemanja Vidic also sidelined, 18-year-old Craig Cathcart may be handed a first-team debut.
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The Guardian: There have been times over the last year when Alan Smith has cut a sorry figure, sitting alone in the stand at Old Trafford, watching his Manchester United colleagues doing just fine without him and wondering when, or maybe if, he would ever get a chance again.It has been a tortuous, sometimes torturous, rehabilitation for the forward after snapping his leg like a bar of seaside rock at Liverpool 14 months ago, but he is finally entitled to think the nightmare is over.
Smith played a pivotal role in United’s 7-1 rout of Roma in the Champions League last week and he was instrumental again in the 4-1 defeat of Watford in the FA Cup semi-final.Tonight he is expected to make his first Premiership start of the season, when Sheffield United cross the Pennines to Manchester, and Smith seems fully over what he described as the toughest period of his career “mentally as well as physically”.
The road to recovery has been anything but straightforward. The photographs of Smith lying on the Anfield turf, his ankle jutting out of his sock, are still vivid and when the 26-year-old made his comeback in the Carling Cup games at Crewe and Southend last autumn it was obvious that the injury might have taken more out of him than he and Sir Alex Ferguson had anticipated.”I knew myself that I was miles off,” Smith recalls.
“I came off after 55 minutes against Southend and after that it was a case of going back to the drawing board and working hard. Since then I’ve just been waiting for the opportunity.”He had to wait until mid-March before returning to the starting XI in the FA Cup quarter-final replay against Middlesbrough and after another three weeks out, his was a shock inclusion against Roma.”The biggest thing for me over the last week has been the gaffer’s belief in me,” Smith says. “To put me in against Roma and to have faith in me to do well in a massive game, that was everything that I’d hoped for.
“It has only been two games so I’m not going to get carried away. I’m still a bit short and I’ve got a fair bit to do to get back to my best. But I feel good and I’m playing football with a smile on my face again, which has been quite difficult for me at times. I had one leg this time last year but I was always confident I would be back. As soon as it happened I spoke to the gaffer and said, ‘It’s done, let’s put it to one side and work hard to get rehab and get back fit’. That was my attitude.
“Even when the gaffer called me in just after Christmas and said he had a list of clubs wanting to take me on loan I said, ‘I’m not going, it’s as simple as that.’ He said it was a chance to play regularly in the Premiership, but I’d done that before and I knew I could do it. That’s never been in question, as far as I’m concerned.”I wanted to stay at United and put myself in the gaffer’s thoughts and it was the right thing to do.
“It’s games like Saturday and last Tuesday night that you want to be involved in - and you can’t get that anywhere else other than the top-three clubs.”The bad news for Smith is that if United hold off Chelsea to win the title he will not have played the requisite number of games to qualify for a medal. However, there is the prospect of an FA Cup final and a possible Champions League final to come, and the forward maintains he is relieved he turned down the chance to leave Old Trafford when there were a dozen clubs trying to tempt him away.
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The Guardian: Manchester United could yet end the season with a quadruple of their own. At senior level Chelsea have been dominant force recently and talk of them winning all four trophies is rife. On this evidence, however, the future belongs to United.The Old Trafford club can head into a crucial period of domestic action buoyed by the emergence of another generation of talented young players.
Their victory brings a record 10th Youth Cup to within touching distance and, although their first leg lead is slender, they should prevail in the return on Thursday week.The architect of their success here was the 18-year-old Febian Brandy, who was influential in both of United’s goals. For the first he burst through and fed Daniel Galbraith, whose cross was headed into his own net by Robbie Threlfall.
For the winner Brandy’s pace proved too much for Jay Spearing, who felled the striker and Sam Hewson coolly scored from the spot.Hewson, United’s captain and an England Under-19 international, showed composure to slot past Martin Hansen in front of a sparse, yet vocal, Kop.The Football Association will be disappointed that the attendance - 19,518 - failed to come close to the 38,187 present at the Emirates Stadium for United’s semi-final first leg against Arsenal.
Several Liverpool first-teamers were in the stands but the man they all hoped to impress was the watching Rafael Benítez and the quality of their goal will not have gone unnoticed. The effervescent Ray Putterill collected possession on the left before twisting and turning around United’s Richard Eckersley and crossing for Craig Lindfield to head home.United’s subsequent discipline in defence and patience in attack were admirable.
They were ruthless on the break and turned in a near-faultless second-half display, perhaps inspired by a motivational talk from Sir Alex Ferguson before kick-off.”He was just saying let’s just play the game and not the occasion,” said Brandy. “He said this game will prove who Manchester United players are and out there we’ve proved that by winning 2-1.”
